Andries van Aarde

DNA in Antiquity: Revisiting Jesus's Birth

Abstract:In order to be born fully human (Latin: vere homo) X and Y chromosomes are needed. Without the involvement of chromosomes, Jesus of Nazareth would have had no ties to humanity. Aristotelian (“On the generation of animals” / “Peri zōōn geneseōs”) and ancient Hellenistic (Galen on the Hippocratic Corpus) views on how the vere homo came into being differ much from today’s knowledge of biology. In the Hebrew Scriptures, rabbinic traditions and Graeco-Roman literature, vere homo was the result not only of a male and female contribution; the third component was divine involvement. This article revisits the textual evidence of the conception of Jesus in the New Testament. The results are compared to propositions in the Athanasian Creed (Quicunque Vult) and the exegetical and/or dogmatic/socio-cultural views of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. The article explores the ethical and cultural relevance of the Christian belief that Jesus was both vere homo and vere Deus, and enters into critical discussion with British New Testament scholar Andrew Lincoln and his idea of “DNA in antiquity.”

Metaphors for the encounter between God and humanity and a roaming theologian's reflective journey

Metaphors for the encounter between God and humanity and a roaming theologian’s reflective journey. This article maps the theology of Christo van der Merwe as a mobilising theology which aided the Netherdutch Reformed Church in Africa (NRCA) in discerning its character, role and purpose. The core of Van der Merwe’s theology consists of a journey with God as encountered in the narratives about Jesus and the Spirit told in the Christian Bible. The article shows that the mobilising core of his theology is due to an ‘interoperational relationship’ between ‘knowing and believing’. In the article, the metaphor ‘roaming’ is used to illustrate this biographical journey as contextual theology which equips pastors with ministerial skills to take care of people who are haunted by trauma.

Rudolf Buftmann se benadering tot die dag van die Here in 2 Petrus

Rudolf Bnltmann,s programme of demythologizing applied to theconcept of the day of the Lord In 2 Peter. In order to grasp the meaning of the concept of the day of the Lord in 2 Peter for today 2 Peter is interpreted in terms of a specific historical phase of eschatological development in the early church. Once this is done, the search for the meaning of such a concept for modern people is done by means of demythologizaion and existential interpretaion.